Shutout: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, and: Red Sox Century: 100 Years of Red Sox Baseball, and: Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, and Baseball History (review)

Race, Baseball, and Boston

Since baseball began in the nineteenth century, race has played an important role in who played, where the game was played, who watched, and other key issues related to the growth of the sport. In the twentieth century, race both offered opportunities and prevented them for ballplayers, fans, owners, and others involved in the game. The question of race and baseball, particularly as it affects one American city, Boston, is the topic to be explored in different ways by Howard Bryant, Glenn Stout, Richard Johnson, and Jules Tygiel. Each of the three texts discussed here explores the relationship between baseball and America through a different lens. The common thread found in all three revolves around the role of race from the nineteenth century until the present. None of these texts tells the story by itself, but each has something to contribute to the conversation.

Extra Bases, by Jules Tygiel, offers the broadest scope of these three texts. Tygiel's essays, originally published between 1984 and 2001, are examined here in a single volume. Dividing the essays into three areas, Tygiel begins by looking at Robinson and his role before moving on to the larger issue of race and baseball and ending with a look at how baseball history is written. Not all the essays fit nicely with Bryant's book on race and Boston or Stout and Johnson's work on the Red Sox, but they all have in common a desire to explore the history of America's national pastime through a variety of lenses to see how it has been affected by America's struggles with race. These three texts enter a discussion that has been going on for some time in sport history. For example, Tygiel has a stronger book on this issue, The Great Experiment, in which he more fully explores the role of Robinson and others in integrating baseball and the influences that had on America. Arthur Ashe's work on race and sport takes this discussion beyond baseball and puts it in a larger context, which none of these books tries to do.

Tygiel sets the tone for all three books by beginning with an explanation of what he considers the role of the historian in this type of study. He sets out to examine how America has changed over time by using one venue as the focus. The other authors take a similar approach; Bryant looks at the relationship Boston has had over time with its African American community, and Stout and Johnson show the changing role of the Red Sox over time.

Each of Tygiel's essays is self-contained and introductory. For example, the first essay is simply his introduction to a larger work on Jackie Robinson. The study, as Tygiel explains, "illuminates not just the contours of an exceptional life, but much about the broader African-American experience of those years."¹ Through this introduction we learn about Robinson's family background, his limited experience with the Kansas City Monarchs, his army career, his meeting with Branch Rickey, his first Major League spring training, his contributions to the game, and his lasting influence. Robinson brought new elements to the game, such as speed and flamboyancy, while serving as a symbol of better things to come for America. After he retired from baseball, Robinson continued to expand on his role by not retreating from society but...